Dandelion Boy
by PinkPaperCrane
Summary: Tsuna is a special boy who can feel other's emotions. He also has a absent father and a drunkard for a mother. When his life takes an unexpected turn at the age of five, he makes it a point to live to the fullest. When the mafia come knocking on his door, what's this poor boy to do? Arco!27, Empath!27, Child!27, mild All27. T to be safe AU
1. Chapter 1

Dandelion Boy

Chapter One

The Crooked Man

Tsuna had always had a strange fondness for dandelions. Why, no one knew. After all, dandelions were pests weren't they? Weeds, unwanted and useless.

Perhaps that was why he loved them so much.

 _'Should you come across a dandelion, you should make a wish...'_

They were just like him. He was unwanted, he was useless and people went to extra effort just to keep him away. He could empathize with those so-called weeds. It was just a little bit pitiful, really. That a child of all things could feel more connections to a plant than to any of his peers.

 _'The wind might take it away...'_

Ironically, just like dandelions, the boy too had many hidden uses. He was terrible on his own, but when he was trying to help others, then he found his true use. And of course, like all things human, this gift for helping others came at a price.

(In his later years, Tsuna would look at the worried faces of his friends and then he would look down at his worn too thin hands with a fond sadness.)

 _'So seal your promise with a kiss...'_

Why couldn't he be as hard to kill as a dandelion?

 _'And who knows, it may kiss an angel's cheek on it's way...'_

It all started with a tingling sensation in his fingertips when he was five. At that age, he was just beginning to realize that there was something a bit shady about his father's job. It was also at that age that he was begining to _feel_ things. Odd things. Odd in the way that he touched his mother's hand the other week and suddenly all he could feel was a deep, awful, terrible, soul-crushing sadness. He had jerked his hand back, tears gushing down his chubby cheeks as he tried to figure out _why_ his mom was still _smiling_ , of all the things.

 _'Of course, your wish may not come true, 'cause wishes come with a price...'_

His mother coos and dotes over his tears, and he just stands there, because now he _knows._

Iemitsu isn't coming back.

 _ **( Betrayal. Dissapointment. Self-loathing. He-was-gone-I-didn't-mean-to-do-it)**_

My son isn't ever going to get better.

 _ **(I never wanted kids. And it's his fault he's gone. .Gone. GONE!-)**_

I don't want to be that woman with the not there husband and the no-good son.

 _'Be it red strings, catfish tails, goldfish scales, or salty grains of rice...'_

Images flash into his mind, his mother staring a cradle with a baby inside, a mix of hate and dissapoinment in her gaze. His mother holding a bottle of wine in her hands, drinkng so much she pretends to be sick in the morning so he has to walk to school alone. A man, brown hair and brown eyes, staring at her as he leans in and kisses her lips, the scent of sweat and cheap liquor permenting the air. All of these, and many, many, many more flood his head, along with so much sadness.

He remembers swaying from side to side, vision dimming.

 _'In the end, it's worth it all...'_

He remembers his ears ringing.

 _'Because a wish is a sacrifice...'_

He remembers the most beautiful, soft, warm and welcoming orange around him.

 _'If there is no pain, there is no gain, your dandelion knows this well...'_

He sees his mother's face, a mix of disgust and awe.

 _'_

 _Is it worth the sacrifice?_

 _Who can tell?'_

Then he remembers blackness.

* * *

He didn't bring it up again, but he did begin to notice changes in his mother's behavior.

Fearful sidelong glances.

Angry muttering in the dead of night when he lay awake because of the nightmares that plagued his senses.

The sudden decrease in the gifts of wine that his tou-san brought back from Italy.

The shadow in his mother's eyes.

It wasn't too long before it came to a head.

"You stupid, stupid, useless child!"

There is a slap to emphasize each word and he can't even focus on the physical pain because each time her skin touches his, he sees a whole host of new images. Each one is slowly tearing away at the mother he thought he knew. So he cries, he cries and he cries and he begs her to stop but just like when a dandelion is stepped on, no one pays any attention.

"You..." His mother's-no, Nana's- voice is slurred and soft now as she struggles to find purchase on the wall that will support her weight. Then she looks up at him, and he can only sit there, a child of no more than five, curled up on the floor holding the red handprints where brusies were sure to form. Then, he sees his mother's eyes, crazed and clouded over and hate filled, then she says,

"You should have never been born!"

Silence. All he can hear. Silence and Nothing that crams itself up against his aching ears.

 **"I wish..."**

Nana turns to face him, the half empty bottle in her hand swishing its cursed contents every which way.

"The hell did you say, _boy_?"

 **"I wish...that I...could..."**

He doesn't get to finish because in the next moment, Nana topples over. He runs to her side, ever the faithful, naive, bleeding hearted soul. Tsuna is the type who forgves his enemies, and one who would spend kindness on killers.

(In his later years, he laughs as Reborn says this, then squeezes Yamamoto's palm.)

He is too kind. Too naive.

Kawahira feels like crying.

 _'Go on, why don't you make a wish...'_

He watches, form hidden and swathed in mist flames, watching as the boy sobs into his cute little hands. Tsuna, whose eyes are drowning in tears, wants to reach out and touch his mother but he is terrified of the _things_ he knows he will see. It weighs down on him, that awful, terrible, horrible sensation. That feeling of being completely useless.

 _'Seal it with your kiss...'_

"I wish...I wish that I could make Mama happy..."

 _'With it, send your thing that you will always miss...'_

 _'...Is that your wish?'_

Sawada Tsunayoshi turns to face him, dark chocolate brown orbs drowning in teardrops. He sniffles and wipes his eyes before he speaks again.

"Who-hic-are you?" the poor child's voice is breaking as he tries to wipe his nose.

What should he say? Hello, I'm the one who keeps the world turning. Today I will make your life hell? Greetings, my name is Kawahira, you know from that antique shop that dissapears and reappears all the time? Yeah, that's me. Would you like me to explain the fact that I am about to rip away your future?

So, he takes a deep breath, the scent of his iron mask filling his nose. He places on the carefully carved persona over his sadness. He leans in close and he says,

"Sawada Tsunayoshi, my name is Checkerface. I am here to tell you that you are someone very special."

Tsuna is shocked, to say the least. He is shocked because the last time someone called him special, it was his bullies who were saying that he had to have special powers to be as dame as he is. The man before him should be someone to be scared of, he should be running, screaming, trying to call the police or something! So then why, why do the man's words sound so... sad?

Sawada Tsunayoshi is a kind bleeding soul with the hidden ability to feel other's emotions.

Sawada Tsunayoshi is a Dandelion Boy who still feeds that one chihuhua even though it bit him.

Sawada Tsunayoshi never tattles on his bullies because he forgives them and feels what they feel when they punch him.

Sawada Tsunayoshi is both a sky and a lucky bond. A boy who has no friends and keeps his enemies in his heart.

Sawada Tsunayoshi still loves his drunkard of a mother.

Sawada makes poorly drawn cards on Father's Day.

Tsunayoshi feeds those hated stray cats.

Tsuna plants dandelion seeds, just to watch them grow in a place no one will hate them.

It's no wonder he is forever surprising.

Five year old, tiny, crying, useless, dame, dandelion boy Tsuna looks up at Checkerface. Then he asks, with a voice that could pull down the walls of a serial killer,

"Are you okay?"

 _'Guess what? I made a Dandelion Wish!'_

Checkerface is shocked for all of three seconds. Years later, he would still look back on this moment with some degree of surprise and think 'That foolish boy...'

But right now, he can't.

Rigt now, he has a job to do.

Right now, he is a monster.

So, he pulls out a small orange pacifier from his pocket. He swallows his conscience, his morals, the fact that he is sentencing a _child_ to his death in a world that crushes all things bright, weed or no. Then he holds it out to the boy-Tsuna, his mind says. You're going to kill him, at least use his name- and the boy frowns at him.

"As I have stated before, Sawada Tsunayoshi, I am Checkerface, and I am hear to tell you that you are very special. I am here to make you the next Sky Arcobaleno."

He is a monster, and he is just fine.

no...no he wasn't.

 _'My wish, was for you to be blessed...'_

Stupid, stupid, kind-hearted boy.

Kind-hearted Dandelion Boy

Wonderfully kind, gentle, fragile, Sky Boy

 **i am so so sorry sawada tsunayoshi**

* * *

 **A/N: Made an age edit. Tsuna is now five**


	2. Big Bad World

Chapter Two

Big Bad World

 _'I miss those once upon a times...'_

 _Once upon a time, the earth was just a single speck of nothing in a very,very,very old universe._

 _It was one of the oddest sights, with birds that swam beneath the seas, fish that ate sundrops from the rays of the sun, trees the size of clovers and sunflowers that towered over mountains. In the early morning, red doves flew across the air to be the sunrise and during the daytime, blue daisies bloomed as the roots of old stars, coloring the sky. At night, dark blue and black cats ran across moonbeams and star shadows , shedding their pelts to make the skirts of their sky mother. Fire rained from heaven each morning, just to burn away the oldness and the mistakes of yesterday so that the first earth could start anew, like a phoenix. It was so strange._

 _To us, that is, but to others, the ones in the begining, it was perfect._

 _(They were so young. You can tell because they believed in the word 'perfect'.)_

 _The birth of something that was neither plant nor animal was so sudden._

 _It was like waking up from a dream. All bright light and sudden realness, with a dash of disorientation._

 _It was so confusing, on both sides._

 _It was beyond beautiful._

 _Suddenly, beneath the gold and silver eyes of the sky, the first seven stood up from the thoughts of the earth. They were young, with bright minds and strange gifts. They were new, with steely sinews and softer skin. They take their first steps, and like babes, they fall into the dirt and green, eyes bearing witness to the first blood that is ever spilt on the speck that is earth._

 _(His one small comfort was that the first earth's first blood was not murder. Then the sun pacifier goes to a hitman. He goes back to his shop, then he clutches the sun pacifier in his hands, bursts into tears and tries to apologize to the soul inside the gem.)_

 _They have much to learn, much to feel, and much to see._

 _The Praeambulo are born._

 _They are so very beautiful._

 _And it- the wonder that was newness- was as brilliant as the sun._

* * *

 _The seven don't have names, but rather think of themselves by whatever catches their eyes. Think, because they have yet to realize that animals aren't the only ones to make sounds._

 _One day, or month, or year, or minute, because the new ones don't know what time is yet-_

 _(Gosh, he missed those days.)_

 _One of them-_ short black hair, eyes like angry sandstorms and rubies- _out of curiousity, sticks his hand into a small fire, and the sensation-_ pain, he discovered pain- _he screeches._

 _Sound has been discovered._

 _So, he calls himself Sound._

 _In time, they begin to make up a way to think to each other, but aloud. She-_ blond hair, eyes like clear tides- _is the first to suggest the idea._

 _She has a name now, Speaker._

* * *

 _The discovery of their gifts comes a few months later._

 _(They had discovered time now. Watcher_ -long pink hair, eyes hidden by blackness- _had spent days watching a small white stone only for a lizard to burst forth. Light and Dark had gone by. That, he had realized, was Time.)_

 _It begins with another woman-_ dark almost green hair, eyes like sky shards- _who one day, wakes up, and tells him not to go to the cave where stones hang overhead._

 _He ignores her, and walks in. The sharp spiky stone that falls from the cieling pierces him down the middle, and Pain fills his whole being. Then he bears witness to the most black he had ever seen on this planet._

 _The others don't know what to do, after all, they don't know what makes a body run. And even if they knew about souls, Healer-_ hair the color of tree bark and adores bugs and women- _can't put a soul back into a body._

 _The first seven don't know what death is, they don't know what this crushing feeling is -Sound wants to call it Sad- so they leave. They don't know how to fight yet. They always run away._

 _He wakes up in two hours time, pulls the spike out of himself, heals like magic, and walks back home._

 _(He should have ran away, giving them a candy coating on life and death is what tears them apart-!)_

 _They rejoice to see him, and then he gives her a name. It is the first name that isn't a Thing. It is unique, it is bizarre, and like her, it is beautiful._

 _Sepira._

 _She names him Kawahira._

 _(To this day, he still thinks his name is a joke and revenge against him for not listening to her warning. He chuckles, then looks at the Sky pacifier and sobers.)_

* * *

 _All of them, except for one, have names now. But before the other is named, they find Flames._

 _Sound discovers the Flame that burns like blood._

 _Storm, he calls it._

 _Speaker finds the flames that run blue as water._

 _Rain, she names._

 _Watcher finds flames that are wispy, wild, and purple_

 _He mutters 'Cloud' then walks away._

 _Healer nearly blinds them with the burst of gold at his fingers_

 _Sunshine, but not as bright as your eyes, he leers to Speaker. (He gets slapped with a flexible piece of cowhide. Speaker is calling it a whip for the sound it makes.)_

 _He discovers two flames, One that is indigo and almost invisible._

 _Like the Mist at morning._

 _And one that sparks green._

 _Like the Lightning._

 _Sephira and the other walk forwards, cup their palms, and then there is orange._

 _Orange like sunflowers and autumn leaves and happiness and sunsets and dandelions and Home-_

 _"Sky" he blurts it out but no one disagrees._

 _And the flame is made._

* * *

 _After Flame, they discover their first truth._

 _ **Nothing, and no one, lives forever**._

 _After they all discover this, he alone discovers another truth._

 _ **There is always an exception to every rule**._

 _Sound goes first. They all woke up one day and the spot where Sound was sleeping was now inhabited by a smooth red gem. They wait two hours, because Kawahira was back in two hours._

 _They wait two hours again. And again. And again. The sky begins to crack and Speaker names whatever happened to Sound. She calls it Death._

 _And so it began, and so it continued._

 _Speaker-_ A stone of the deepest blue

 _Watcher-_ A gem like the purple in the dusk

 _Healer-_ A stone of sunflower gold

 _Other has vanished, and he names him dead too-_

 _Sepira-_ Unfathomable orange

 _Himself-_ Green and Indigo- but dammit all why can't he stay dead?!

 _The world around him crumbles away, shatters, explodes, and he falls asleep._

* * *

 _He wakes up to everything being the way it is now, with tall trees and no sky cats, and no fire to burn away the sins that these people-_ new but not as good _-commit. It is like hitting a reset button. Then it clicks when the Aztecs chant about the upcoming End Of Everything. The new humans need the elements in these stones to keep the world spinning. In order for the elements to activate, they must be in the care of someone with the same flame. But these humans are not as hardy, and this world is not as strong as the last. It is with a stone on his heart that he dons his mask_ -coward, he can't even face his victims- _and the cycle of the Arcobaleno began._

* * *

 _He is giving them away._

 _He is giving Sound away._

 _He is giving Speaker away._

 _He is giving Watcher away._

 _He is giving Healer away._

 _He is giving_ _ **her**_ _away._

 _He is giving himself away._

 _And the gifts must be good because he just keeps on giving._

 _And giving...and giving...and giving...and giving..._

 _And slowly, he loses his soul._

* * *

Sawada Tsunayoshi listens. He hears, and he feels. He is young, and the only reason he will remember this is because that unfathomble orange pacifier is slowly killing him. He reaches out, and touches the masked man, trying to give comfort because he can almost see the tearing in the man's heart as he tells him why he must take this burden.

 _"I wish I could make the hurt go away..."_

He feels tears prick his eyelids. He does not want this. He does not want this at all but...

Checkerface must hate it more.

Checkerface can see the struggle on the too young face. So he bends down and gives the best advice he can.

( _He hasn't hugged anyone in a very long time...Tsunayoshi, he is warm enough to make him feel alive and not like a talking corpse)_

"You don't have to live forever, you just have to **live.** "

Kawahira looks down on Tsunayoshi, and he sees **him**. The other, the one who was not named. The one with untamable gold hair and eyes like Sky flames and sunsets. The one who was content to watch as the others discovered. The one who accepted with all the grae of the big blue sky. The one who, above all other things, could _**Feel.**_

That gift is in this boy. This big hearted, too kind, no-good boy. The boy who is wearing Sepira around his throat by a silver ribbon.

And for the first time, he feels just a tiny, microscopic stirring in his soul.

Sound had called it Hope.

To be continued...

* * *

A/N: OMG! So, I posted this yesterday, and it got 11 reviews, 41 follows and 38 favorites! Have I said that I love you guys? Anywho, this is my first fanfic, so I hope you can tolerate my mistakes. Thank you so much for looking at this! As for why Tsuna can function so well so young, I'll explain later. (Kinda forgot that three years old are kind of babies and can't do much...) Also, feel free to review with an idea or something, I'm winging this, so I can use all the help I can get. Next Chapter starts plot, and gives some more backround on Tsuna's gifts. I hope that you like my somewhat trashy headcanon. And my massive AU. And my typos...

It is 1:00 am, kill me

Please review!

Ciao,

Pink

(P.S. to the EXTREME!) What Checkerface says is from Tuck Everlasting and not mine, by the way...

Praeambulo means first in Latin, I think.


	3. Good Flower

Chapter Three

Good Flower

 _(A Dream is a wish your heart makes...)_

When Tsuna wakes up in the morning, what strikes him first is the orange pacifier on his nightstand, wrapped up in odd looking chains. Then he sees the pair of soft and warm looking white gloves that were acting as the pacifier's cushion. Then, he sees his calender, which had a cute and cartoonish lion sitting on a pumpkin as its picture. His sluggish brain tries to put the pieces together.

 _(Those wishes that come with a price...)_

It is October the fourteenth.

The man told him he was going to die young at twelve o'clock, the fourteenth of October.

His birthday.

As far as all things went, Tsuna absolutely adored hs birthday. His was still at the age where getting older meant that he was getting to be a 'big boy'. His mother would make him a strawberry cake and buy him a gift. His birthday was always the day that his father called him to see how his beloved 'tuna-fish' was doing. On his birthday, he got to do whatever he wanted, which usually was anything involving his mother.

 _(Once upon a time, she loved you...once)_

Tsuna feels a tugging in the back of his brain, an odd prickling sensatation that he once got on the day he first discovered his...gift. He goes downstairs, and his mother is not there. He walks to her room, and she is not there either. He checks every room in the house, before the realization hits him along with the stabbing needle sensation that had been prickling his mind.

His mother has left him alone.

 _(But it was just the once.)_

He doesn't want to really believe it at first. At first, he sits at the table, waiting. Then he walks around the house. Then he struggles to make himself something to eat. Then he just falls in the middle of the floor, trying not to cry, but failing. He waits for hours for his mother to come back. Then he goes up to his room.

Before today, he had never really noticed how big and cold everything was.

The house wasn't the biggest on the block by any means. On the contrary, it was actually one of the smaller homes. That being said though, with his mother gone and no warm cooking scents to fill up the air and no **anything** , he can't help but wonder why he hadn't noticed the large size before.

Shakily, he reaches out and brushes his fingertips against the wall, and he sees. He sees the scraping of the tips his mother's white high heeled shoes against the wall as his father carries her upstairs in her wedding dress. He sees the footsteps of his papa on one of his rare visits while he walks up the steps, eager to see his child. Then...then he sees a strange man, brown hair, blue eyes, wrapping an arm around his mother's waist as they walk up the steps together, each with a wine bottle in hand.

He pulls his fingers away with a jerk.

It was so odd, memories like these, the ones that aren't your own, almost seem like dreams until you see them through the eyes of a witness.

Then they hurt like barbed wire.

Shakily, he pulls on the pair of gloves Checkerface left him. The material was warm and soft, the gentle white a pleasant color to look at. The one warm thing in this house.

 _(It is a house now, not a home. When he stops to think, it was never really a home.)_

It is crushing down on his too thin shoulders, this feeling of loneliness. So, what does he do?

Cry?

 _(You can't do that again, you just cried a few hours ago!)_

Complain?

 _(There are seven others just like you, what gives you the right?)_

...What does he do?

When it comes down to it, he wasn't really at the age were the future was something to think about. It was something far, far, far away. Like a fairytale. In the world were he was a knight or a king or a wizard or...something. But now? He was a Sky.

He was a Sky.

He was a barely there sky, like the wee hours of the dawn.

The phone rings and snaps him and his mind from the dark place that the pacifier spawned.

Hurriedly, he goes and picks up the phone.

"Hello?" He nearly cringes at how hoarse his voice is.

"Tsu-fish!" His father's voice is a welcome warmth to the cold blowing in his heart, and he can't help but smile at his father's words. He barely knew him, sure, but when it came down to the truth, he couldn't help but love and admire the man now that he knew the truth the man. After all, cutting off all ties with your family must be tough. Doing it in the watchful black eyes of the mafia must be harder.

 _(It is later when he feels the eyes of his Sun on him from the trees as he goes shopping that the darkness behind this statment rears its head ten fold.)_

"

I'm not a fishie, tou-san," he loved his father, but love or no, he was not a fish!

There was laughter over the line.

"Just calling to wish my tuna a happy birthday! Papa misses his tuna fishie..." the man's tone is slightly sad at the end, and Tsuna doesn't have to be an empath to know that the man really wants to see his family. He has to smile here. His father barely sees his wife, and he is the one to remain faithful in a country full of beautiful women. They make small talk for a while, talking about school and books and Tsuna tries to tell his Papa that girls have cooties and whatever else the two can cram into a conversatation.

 _(He always tried to fit a lifetime into those talks.)_

Tsuna makes it a point to not let on that he knows about the mafia or about the pacifier around his neck. Or the fact that his mother is nowhere to be seen. Or the fact that there is next to no food in the house. Or that there was a strange man in his room last night who told him the truth about his father's job.

 _(At the stroke of midnight, the spell of innocence shall be broken, shattered like the glass of a slipper...)_

A ring of the doorbell nearly makes him jump out of his skin. Swiftly, he tells his Papa to hold on, then he opens the door.

There, in all his six foot one inch goofy grinning blonde haired blue eyed glory is his papa, cellphone held up to his ear, eyes shining. Quickly, he hangs up the phone and scoops his son up into a huge and bone crushing hug, twirling his boy around.

 _(Of every road less traveled by, his favorite was the one that led him home)_

But as he set hs darling innocent cute tuna fish on the ground, he noticed the lack of his beloved wife at the door. Then he caught sight of the bruises on his beloved boy's face. His personality did a one eighty.

"Tsu-fish, where's your mother? Did someone hurt you?"

His thoughts were that somehow, a mafia hench fool had broken in, taken his wife, then beat his son. He was so overcome with rage that he didn't stop to think that, if a mafia henchman had broken in, they would want his son, not his wife. He is snapped from his thoughts by Tsuna, who is tugging on his sleeve wearing a pair of gloves that he has never seen before.

"Tsu-fish?"

Tsuna gives him a soft smile, and he is struck with how...mature his son looks now. His eyes were still big, still that beautiful shade of a sweet deep and dark brown, flecked with hints of amber, honey, and gold. Only now, they look as if someone picked up a paintbrush and gracefully smudged away some of his innocence. It was still there, just...muted. Like someone who had seen how dark the world really was and still stayed bright and shining. He swallows.

Just how long had he been gone?

 _(Time is something we measure in the moments, not the days)_

"Tou-san," Tsuna gave his father a cute smile,"Na-Okaa-san just went out with some of her friends tonight, that's why she's not home." He keeps talking, trying to peel away the depressed face his father had put on.

 _(For the saddest of realities, that face seems more realistic than any grin he had put on.)_

"And I just tripped and hurt myself a little, I'm okay!"

To top off his preformance, he give his papa his best doe eyes. Hs father swaps back to his goofy grin in an instant.

"Aw~My sweet clumsy Tsu-fish!" he picks up his son, nearly staggers because his boy is way too light, then waltzs into the kitchen.

 _(Dance away the night, and the pain, and the fear, your knight in shining armour is here...)_

Iemistu is both laughing with his son and collapsing into tears. He wants to ruffle his son's hair. He wants to cry buckets. He wants to eat the surprisingly good food his son made. He wants to wail and scream to his wife about how he's sorry-

It is midnight when he gives up on getting to sleep normally and grabs a bottle of wine.

It is one o'clock when his son walks down the steps.

"Papa?"

His boy is dressed in baby blue pajamas that have tiny grey tunas on them.

"Tsu~oo-fis'" he slurs, and he can't help but feel a hint of shame in his chest.

His son walks forwards, the lack of light making it hard for him to see his son's face. Then, skinny arm come forwards, a blanket in them.

"You'll catch a cold if you sleep on the floor like that, tou-san,"

The blanket comes around him, and his son sits next to him. He dully notes that Tsuna is still wearing gloves. A soft hum fills up the silence.

"Tsuna."

Upon hearing his name, Tsunayoshi finally looks up.

"Does...does Nana still love me?"

Oh dear. This was why he hated wine. It was such a loose tongued devil. It turns men into monsters, into saints, or inside out. The point was, he didn't know if it showed the truth in a person or the lies.

Should he tell a lie?

He was taught to never lie.

That it was wrong.

"I think so."

Ah. Now why did his mouth go and do that, he hadn't had any of that cursed drink.

 _(What is a kind lie?)_

He doesn't need to be an empath to see that his father is relieved. He does, though, to see that he has done...the right thing? When did life become so complicated?

When Iemitsu flies back to Italy without seeing his wife. His heart is light and weighed down. He doesn't know why, and as he is puzzling over this, he realizes something.

"Why was my Tsuna wearing gloves?"

* * *

He is seven when he meets the man at the antique shop.

The man gives him a large, dusty old book and shoos him away.

It is strange, he couldn't recall ever seeing that shop before, or going in. Last he checked, he had been walking to the grocery store...

It is when he is walking home with bags of food in his gloved hands that he takes a look at the cover.

 _Empathe: Becoming who you are_

...He had to find that shop again.

* * *

Tsuna is eight when he sees his mom again.

In that time, he has become rather proficent at living alone, and the sight of his mother shakes him. He had been washing his hands, so when he mother shows up with a blonde man in tow and shoves a check into his hands, he nearly blacks out when they brush fingers.

When he wakes up in the front yard, because no one cared about poor picked on Dame-Tsuna enough to at least pull him inside before the rain started, he stares at the surprisingly dry check in his hands and smiles.

His mother still cared about him.

He knew it.

 ** _naïve fool, are you trying to hurt yourself?_**

 _(In his later years, Hayato would ask him why he loved her._

 _He would just smile and chuckle softly, clutching a handmade Mother's Day card.)_

* * *

Tsunayoshi is nine when he finally, finally masters his empathic abilities.

 _(They are not gifts. They are not powers. They are abilities. Seeing the buried memories of the supposedly 'clean' town was no gift. And feeling could not keep bullies away)_

The soft orange glow around his palms is dim, like the lamps that line the streets at night. Then, with caution, he reaches out and touches a nearby tree. Immediantly, he watches and two girls, holding hands run up a carve in their names. Then he tries to go futher back in the time.

There is a platinum blond man that looks like Hibari leaning on the tree. He gently pulls his hands away from the tree.

How interesting.

* * *

Tsuna has been living alone in the same house for five years when he sees the flyer in the mail.

 _I will train your child to become the leader of the next generation_

 _Age, grade, and subject don't matter_

 _Pay will be lodgings and food_

 _I am young and good looking_

 _-Reborn_

Tsuna sweatdropped.

 _...A scam..._

Then he makes the mistake os picking it up without his gloves.

 _ **(Dangerous-bad-good-sunshine-yours-his-gun-blood-death-pacifier, a stone of sunflower gold)**_

He gasps, his eyes widening as he drops both the paper an the broom he was holding.

Ten year old Sawada Tsunayoshi.

Welcome to the Mafia.

We hope you are not scared of the dark.

* * *

 _(When you loose something, don't you hate it just a little for being gone?)_

 _Other vanished but he did not die. Other was always one to bask in the other elements, letting them do as they pleased. He watched as the others stumbled about, learning and growing and becoming and-_

 _dying._

 _When he wakes up in the new earth, he doesn't know what to do._

 _But these new humans...they need help._

 _So he obliges._

 _He could always feel what others could feel as his own. He was just born that way._

 _So he tries to use that for some good._

 _He remains unamed, but the humans try to name him._

 _Arthur_

 _The Golden Bird_

 _Merlin_

 _Seer_

 _It_

 _Magic Man_

 _Him_

 _The one who sees_

 _Thing_

 _Evil_

 _Good m'n_

 _._

 _._ _._

 _._

 _._

 _It is his last name that he likes the most._

 _In time, he grew to love another, and they bore a child. And so his legay went on. On, but no one with the gift he had. This did not bother him. So when he died, aand all that was left of him were rings in the colors of the rainbow, he was content._

 _Until the blood_

 _Until the screaming_

 _Until the fist he sat upon plunged into another innocent, causing him to scream as he felt the pain of another for the first time in ages._

 _Then he began to look._

 _No_

 _No_

 _No_

 _No_

 _No_

 _No_

 _No_

 _No, not that one-ah._

 _There_

 _Tsunayoshi._

 _You will do well._

 _Uphold that last name I have come to scorn and love..._

 _That name..._

 _Giotto..._

* * *

 **A/N: It is 1:16 and i'm tired but you all left such lovely reviews I couldn't not. I hope you guys like this chappie, and forgive the possible lack of the letter r. My keyboard is killing me. I also hope you guys like my Iemistu. I don't like him, but for me he was vey sympathetic in the series, so i tried to do him justice.**

 **have to know, should I redeem Nana? I'm kinda on the rails with that. She won't really matter plotwise anymore, but...**

 **I hope you like it, and that you caught my edit with Tsuna's age**

 **I love you all, Happy Birthday if it is your birthday, and I am rambling because I am too tired to think. I honestly don't even know if this is in English right now...**

 **Ciao,**

 **Pink.**


	4. Lucky Bond Boy

Chapter Four

Lucky Bond Boy

 _(It happened in a once upon a dream...a good dream._

 _Like you, it was one of a kind.)_

On top of a hill just south of civilization and west of normal, there sits a boy.

He is rather scrawny, with far too many missed meals, and lean from running. His skin is as pale as milk, with the barest of pink, just so that he looked alive. There was a beauty to him, in a way. His face is feminine, and his skin is soft, and his lips are pink. His eyes are big, almond shaped, wise and brown, framed by thick and dark lashes. Beneath his too knowing eyes, are deep and dark shadows that no make up could achieve.

The boy's hair is short, mostly, save for the long ponytail that ran down the boy's back, a soft trickle of dark brown slipping down a faded orange long sleeved t-shirt, coming to an end at the small of the boy's back, right before the boy's jeans.

They close, the boy's eyes do.

A tear trickles out of them, shimmering sunset color all over, before dropping into the dirt.

His bare feet poke into the grass, twitching from the tickle.

The boy is waiting, up on that hill, underneath the apple tree, beneath the old green of sunlight through leaves, curled up in its roots.

The boy is waiting, and he keeps watching the place his golden tear fell down.

And the boy leans his heads back, eyes sliding shut as their color goes from brown to gold. His hands, if possible, are a shade paler than the rest of his almost sickly looking frame. They were meant for gloves, but now they are bare and in the dirt, a soft orange glow to them.

The boy is listening.

To what, who knows, but he is listening.

And he is waiting.

And though his eyes are closed, he is watching.

Then, all in a sudden rushness, like the flipping of a caught fish, the boy's face bursts into the broadest of happy and innocent grins. Cute and delightfully boyish, complete with dimples and cheek. The tree above him bends over, just a little.

Just to see the boy smile.

Just to see.

The moment is broken by a cat, sleek and smug, who slinks from out underneath the bushes.

It is a gold cat, gold with eyes of sapphire. His collar is encrusted with something that could be both blood or tears. Or perhaps it is the remnant of a lost dream that someone scattered someplace and was on the back of the boy's bare and tiny feet.

 _(Sometimes, one does wonder if the love songs we hear in dreaming get heard by another...)_

Who honestly knows where cats go when they dissappear.

And who knows where things go when they dissappear.

 _(It is a odd word in itself, disappear, it is almost like it leaves you, at the end.)_

The boy turns to face the slightly fatter than normal cat, and scoops him up in his arms. The boy's face is still bright with the remnants of a smile, and the cat tilts its head in boy feels the curiousity, and a soft smile touches its tiny fingers to his face as the ten year old, scrawny, dead dandelion beautiful Sawada Tsunayoshi looks towards the rising sun. He cuddles the cat close, inhaling the scent of his -that was what the cat was, a he- fur and chuckles like a bell, eyes trained east.

"I don't need to tell you that the sun has risen, do I?" Tsuna's voice is hoarse from lack of use, but pleasant to listen to. Almost like giving an untrained genius a piano or a harp.

Tsuna allows the ground beneath his feet to send him the odd bits and baubles of the happiness of a birthday party somewhere, and the sadness of a funeral somewhere else. All of these things pass through his thoughts and his compassion, and he sends a congratulation feeling and a sympathetic one back to wherever.

 _(Congratulations on a life lived, my regrets on getting older...)_

He also sends an apology to someplace, for stepping on a dream. Tossing emotions, sending them away and back again...it has become something of a norm.

 _(People don't know it, but they lay down dreams at his feet, he steps lightly, as to not disturb those on the ground dreams._

 _He is clumsy, though.)_

"It is beautiful isn't it, Giotto?" Tsuna whispers, looking at the sunrise.

The cat, now known as Giotto, purrs as Tsuna rubs his ears and back. Tsuna allows himself to drift away from whatever connection he had with the earth-what should he call it? A Link?- and gets to his feet, Giotto still in his arms.

He then walks down the hill, to prepare himself. He must prepare himself for school, for work, for people, for the odd dances that emotions do, and for the coming of the sun.

* * *

The white gloves slip on before he puts on his uniform.

 _(Too many memories of pain in this uniform.)_

The orange chained up pacifier is cradled in them, before being pocketed.

 _(It is the heaviest thing he has ever had to carry.)_

His hair is tied back with the silver ribbon the pacifier used to be on.

 _(It is as silver as the inconstant moon...)_

And the day begins.

* * *

Reborn walks to the Sawada house, reviewing information in his mind. His steps are light. His mind is focused. The pacifier- _ **damned, damned, stupid thing**_ \- is still a dark, sunflower gold. Leon scuttles down his fedora to his shoulder, and licks his chubby baby cheek. He never changes. Ever.

 _(Peter Pan neverlands and he never gets any older. There was a boy, who thought life a toy, and never knew any better._

 _If you kill enough people, you forget how important life is._

 _Than someone takes something away_

 _Even Peter had to grow up.)_

There it was.

The Sawada household.

And in it, his new student and his student's mother.

He walks forwards, a suave swagger in his step despite the fact that he didn't reach most people's knee.

The house is a neat little cookie cutter house that has a cute little garden out back and a small birdbath out front. It looks rather boring, in all honesty.

Then he walks forwards, to the front door. He is about to knock-

The door swings open before he can even finish raising his arm.

There is a fat cat at the door, looking at him with piercing blue eyes.

...What?

* * *

Tsuna was in the kitchen making dinner when he felt the vibrations of footsteps through the yard to his tiny and bare toes.

 _(It was then the Thing that was Supposed To Happen began. The sun sort of did what it was supposed to do, which was rise, ten times better that day and then every other little and alive thing thought,_

 _'Let's go and make ourselves a story')_

So he walks to the door and opens it. Then he hides behind it, leaving just the top of his head peeking out. His brown eyes focus on the baby right away, and he feels the pit of his stomach twist, flop, and roll over.

 _(Before She pricked her finger, what do you think She felt?)_

There is a Contradiction standing on his doorstep, staring at his cat.

...What?

* * *

For a moment, the two just stare at each other. Boy and Baby, locked in curiousity. Then Giotto starts to act like his spoiled self and paws at Tsuna, meowing for his meal. Giotto is a rather possesive cat, and he doesn't like it when Tsuna's eyes are not on him. Tsuna, broken from his trace, snaps back into reality. He gives the baby a closed eyed and nervous smile.

"H-hello? Wh-who m-might y-you be?"

Reborn jumps back from his surprise and answers in the way he planned. Which was to say, not at all, really.

"I'm your new home tutor," he says, and instead of the reaction he was expecting, which was surprise an maybe even a bit a mock, he gets a tilt of the head.

Tsuna is giving him a considering gaze, and it's almost like he is peeling away the many, many walls Reborn took years to put up. He is just standing there, thinking, before he nods and his lips curve up, just a bit.

"I-I see...W-well, I was just making dinner," the boy says, fighting to control his stutter. "S-so you can join me, i-if you like..." The way the boy says it is strangely hopeful, and his big brown eyes peek up through the shade of his fringe. Reborn nods, tipping the brim of his fedora.

 _(She was surrounded by magic, but the loneliness was there...)_

Tsunayoshi's face brightens, just a little bit, before he steps back to allow Reborn inside. Reborn decides to observe his student,

He frowns.

Tsuna...isn't anything like Iemitsu said. His mother is also nowhere in sight.

 _Damn Iemistu._

He walks in, and the scents of warm food hit his nose. He takes an deep inhale, savouring the scent.

Curry, it seemed. And good curry too. His stomach growled, and he feelt his lips quirk up just a little. Dinner wasn't sounding too bad.

 _('When She pricked her finger, the blood was as red as pomergranates._

 _She could never take this back,_

 _But did she want to?)_

It is when dinner is finished and they are sitting in Tsuna's room that he give Tsuna the truth. Most of it, anyways.

"You should probably know, that I am not just a home tutor. I am a hitman, and my real job is to make you a mafia boss. A boss of the Vongola, to be exact."

He waits for the shock, for the denial, for the frantic attempts to tell him that's he crazy but Tsuna merely smiles, and his eyes are cast over with shadows and cobwebs.

Before then, he hadn't really noticed how... _empty_ the boy's eyes were. Why was that?

 _(The cottage could only be seen when it wants to be found.)_

He smiles in the way that one smiles upon a young child who says that they want to be a dragon when they grow up. He smiles in the way the Mona Lisa smiles. Sad and resigned and beautiful all at once, leaving the world to wonder if it was a genuine grin.

' _I giving you what you what, a smile. A broad smile. But is it really the smile that you want?_

"That is impossible, I am afraid. You see, I don't want to be a mafia boss." It is the way the boy says it, like he was so sure of the fact that he, Reborn, the world's greatest hitman, was never going to make him a mafia boss if just because he didn't want to be one.

His will is strong. Too bad Reborn's is stronger.

Reborn feels the beginnings of a frown tugging at his mask. Tsuna is becoming more and more puzzling by the minute. It is...frustrating, to say the least. But he fixes himself, recovers and bounces back.

"Oh? And how are you so sure Dame-Tsuna, it is in your destiny after all." Ugh. He didn't use words like destiny but Tsuna looks like the type who will believe that sort of thing so...That should get a semblance of a reaction.

Tsuna smile fades. "Oh, trust me, Reborn, I know what is in my bloodline. I also know that it is not my destiny to be a mafia boss." His stutter has vanished and for a moment, Reborn thinks he can see Tsuna's eyes turn into a sunset gold.

But it has to just be a trick of the light.

Tsuna is staring at his gloved hands now with a dark look in his eyes. When he catches a glimpse of the boy's slender wrists, he can't help but think that if someone where to grab Tsuna, squeeze him to hard, that that wrist would snap in two. The thought disturbs him greatly, for some reason.

 _How is this boy, who looks like he could blow away in the slightest of breezes, supposed to join the mafia?_

"I am truly sorry, Reborn, but I cannot become a mafia boss." Tsuna rubs his hands together. Giotto, staring at his master, let out a soft and sad sounding meow before jumping onto hs master's lap. Tsuna gently ran his fingers over the soft fur, looking almost afraid to touch the cat. Was Tsuna afraid of touch? It would make sense, after all, the reports read that Tsuna had been bullied quite often when he was younger.

Then again, he had to wonder why the boy wore gloves and long sleeves. It was rather warm outside, after all.

Reborn snaps back to reality when he sees the apologetic smile Tsuna is giving him.

"I am sorry, Reborn..." The way Tsuna spoke then, it was like he was apologizing for murder, and the sad thing was, if he said it like that Reborn would have forgiven him ten times over.

The last person to make him feel this way was Luche.

And that is a dusty box in the corner of his soul he does not want to touch in the slightest.

He has to struggle to keep the frown that wanted to break free from his mask under wraps. Why was this boy riling him up so, dammit?

Perhaps it was hs genuine and raw emotion that caused it. The boy was going to be eaten alive by the mafia, alive and smiling at his captors, apologizing for getting blood on their floor.

He almost, almost felt sorry for the boy.

But for now, it was observation time. Then it was time to chew out Iemitsu.

He hopped up on top of Tsuna's head, marveling at the soft feel of it Tsuna goes absolutely rigid, like he is bracing himself for a blow. He frowns.

 _'What on earth...?'_

Slowly, Tsuna relaxes, and his eyes look up to Reborn's spot on his head.

"Re...born?"

"Whether you want to or not, it is your fate to be Vongola Decimo," he says. "I will be you tutor, also whether you like it or not, so for now, I will be in your care."

Tsuna's eyes go huge, and for a moment, it feels as if Rebon is the very center of the universe, with those eyes on him. They ae wide and incredulous, but there is the barest bit of...hope in those brown orbs.

 _When he walked in, there was no one but the boy and his cat._

He was no saint, and he was no angel, but he was good at reading people and situations.

 _(When you spend your life alone, you can see the loneliness in others.)_

Just how long had Sawada Tsunayoshi been by himself?

"Your...staying here? With me?" Tsuna looks as if someone just handed him the world on a silver platter.

Reborn isn't one for sappy stuff, but the fragile hope in those eyes...

"...I'm your tutor, Dame-Tsuna."

* * *

 _(Tsuna doesn't ask Reborn, but he always thought that Fate and Destiny were two very different things. One could be changed.)_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _(Some day, you'll be old enough to start reading Fairy Tales again.)_

* * *

Tsuna smiles, and the world lights up with his pearly teeth. It wasn't much of an answer, but Tsuna...Tsuna feels happy.

Suddenly, the weight in his pocket isn't as much.

* * *

At night, sometimes Tsuna dreams of other people. Not in the in love way, but in the -I-am-in-your-skin- way. It is odd and weird and terrible feeling and once he slipped into the mind of a man who was killing someone and oh please dear gosh _no-_

He had woken up, tearing at his throat with his fingernails. Giotto had bit his hand to wake him up.

Tonight, he dreams in the skin of someone who is angry. So very, very angry. Angry like fire, angry like red, angry like hurricanes. And underneath that protective coating of anger that keeps the world from thinking weakness, there is so much sad that he wakes up with tears on his cheeks.

The sad that one gets when one loses something.

It is the sad one gets when the world has been lying to you your whole life.

It is the sad, that above all else, wishes for comfort.

He sees silver.

He sees green.

He sees red.

He sees fire.

He feels, oh, he _feels_ the burning resentment for the people who just wouldn't give him a chance-

Then Tsuna wakes up.

It is not the first time he has had this dream.

There is cold sweat on his body and a chill to his soul. Dully,he notes that he has a fever again. Shakily, he walks outside after shifting a snoozing Giotto off of his stomach. He needed to think.

Unbeknowst to him, Giotto looks up after his retreating form, before standing up and waddling over to the drawer in the nightstand. He paws it open, and pushes his fluffy head inside, staring for a moment at whatever was in there. The cat pulls back, lets a displeased sound out of his throat, glares at Reborn, then goes to back to sleep, blue eyes flashing orange for a quick moment.

* * *

When Reborn wakes up, it is at the wee hours of the dawn. He gets up, eager to 'gently wake' his no good student before he has to go to school. After a few hours, of course. Then he looks over at the bed to his left and notes that it is empty.

Tsuna is sitting outside, dressed in nothing but a thin white long sleeved shirt that hugs him like a glove and boxers set low on the hips. His hair is undone, and the shadows underneath his eyes are even deeper than normal. He is staring at the grey and purple sky with dried tears on his face. Reborn stops and stares, feeling the tug that he once felt when Luche had come home injured in an ambush. The urge to shoot up the idiot who hurt his- no, he wasn't going there.

There is silence before Tsuna whispers,

"There is a storm coming."

Reborn feels his heart drop. Oh, please no. Not again.

Tsuna is a Sky.

A Sky who just told him there is a Storm coming.

Smoking Bomb was to attend class tomorrow.

And Tsuna _knew._

Tsuna...could he see the future?

He feels his heart do dances in his chest, because Luche was a sky and she could see the future and he had adored Luche but she had betrayed him but he couldn't really hate her because he was her Sun and Tsuna was a Sky and he had failed Luche and he could not fail again because-

Thunder rumbled over head. A fork of lightning lashed the sky.

He breathed out, slowly, through his nose in relief.

There was a storm coming, not a Storm.

Tsuna was fine.

He was fine.

He was stick thin and looked awful but he wasn't going anywhere.

He berated himself for overeacting, before he sat down next to his silent and strangely soft student who is still wearing his gloves and long sleeves, even in the pre day heat.

Tsuna wasn't going anywhere. He was fine.

* * *

Upstairs, in a drawer there is a pacifier wrapped in a soft orange glow and dark blue chains.

It flickers, splutters, then settles.

...It would last a bit longer.

* * *

 _(Did you know? If you dream a thing more than once, it's sure to come true...)_

 _(I know this, because in my dream, there was you...)_

* * *

 **A/N: There. All done. The hardest chapter ever, is done. I honestly can say that this might be a fail chapter. Seriously, all the OC. Reborn is so hard to write...**

 **(My buddy just told me that this was a awful story. Upon wrapping this chapter up, I am inclined to agree...)**

 **Anyways, cat Giotto. I don't know. I don't. I was typing and eating cake because my birthday is in two days (May 24th!) and there was a sharpie open on the desk and I inhaled the fumes so...yeah. Fat cat Giotto.**

 **In truth, it was a toss up between Kawahira, Xanxus, Byakuran, Luche, or Giotto. Giotto won. In all honesty, I don't even know if this is a catified Giotto or just a fat, super smart cat with a Tsuna-complex** _ **named**_ **Giotto. Opinions?**

 **Thank you all for your favorites, reviews, follows and tips.**

 **You guys are just...I can't even. You guys are so great, looking at my scrap of a story. Your reviews are what inspire me to write really. I open each day with reading and re-reading your reviews. Really, you guys are the best.**

 **Anyways,**

 **Ciao~**

 **Pink.**

 **P.S The quotes here are from either Sleeping Beauty, the Disney version, or C.S Lewis, or my own. If you have any good quotes, review with them and let me know!**

 **(If you've got some for the stories The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pinocchio, I would be much obliged.)**

 **Real Ciao~**

 **Pink.**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Smoker Boy**


	5. Smoker Boy

Chapter Five

Smoker Boy

 _(This? This is a story about bitter, bitter, bitter people.)_

A teenage boy strides down the hallways of Nami-Chuu, a teen with sea green eyes and hair the color of old stardust.

 _(Remants of old and long since forgotten wishes)_

His face is set into a tight scowl. There is a cigarette between his lips. There is a looseness to his clothing, and fire to his his eyes, he doesn't know that wherever he goes, with him he brings a storm.

 _(He froths beneath the skin,_

 _A passion barely contained in,_

 _That Rider in the Storm.)_

Gokudera Hayato is walking down stairs towards the lower levels of the schools, cussing out the heir in his mind. He can't cuss out the current Vongola boss, so he'll cuss out the heir.

Honestly, who the hell thought getting a ten year old kid to become a boss of the biggest familigia in the mafia was a good idea!

He allowed himself to stew as he walked down to the fifth grade, his mind already working through what he had to do.

Gokudera Hayato is a fifteen year old half blood Italian.

He is a dirty blood boy and a hitman.

So he has to test the new boss.

And he says this to himself over and over again as he walks into the designated classroom, narrows his eyes in on a sickly pale boy in the back who is staring out the window, marches up while ignoring the teacher, and kicks the desk of a boy who looked as if he was the weakest thing on this earth.

The boy topples over, and yelps.

At once, the class goes silent, including the teacher.

Then-

"No way, Dame-Tsuna can talk?"

At once the class exploded into laughter.

"That's why he doesn't speak, he doesn't know how!"

"He really is a Dame!"

"Baka-Tsuna!"

Even the teacher was laughing, chuckling softly under his breath.

As for the heir, he merely picks himself up, straightens his desk, and fixes his chair. Then he looked up at Gokudera, and he smiled.

"I...I apologize, Gokudera-kun...I'm sorry."

He could only stare because the way ths kid says it, it's like he thought he was the one at fault and that he thought that he, Hayato, bastard child of a simple pianist, aboy with dirty blood, was a higher being and he, the Vongola heir, was begging for forgiveness. Hayato freezes because the way the kid is looking at him, for a second it's like he was the very center of the universe.

 _(He woke up on the beach, and she was staring at him with all the love in the world...)_

Why was he here again?

Oh...right...testing...

He quickly schooled his face into a artful scowl, and slams a piece of paper down onto the desk, though he was a bit more gentle.

Tsuna still flinched though.

"Meet me here."

Then he left, shaken.

Tsunayoshi picked up the paper, and ignoring the whispers and jeers of his peers, he read it, gloved hands clenching tight.

 _Behind the school_

 _3:00_

 _Be there or else_

He allowed his lips to curve upwards slightly, as he watched the teen walk away. Gokudera had so much anger, he felt it a mile away. Literally.

 _'Didn't I tell you, Reborn? There is a storm coming...'_

Outside, the grey sky darkened.

* * *

At three exactly, Tsuna walked behind the school.

At three exactly, Reborn sat in one of his many hiding spots, gun at the ready.

At three exactly, Gokudera swallowed down the guilt that came with targeting a _boy_ and slipped into the angry persona that he had dragged over himself, to protect himself.

 _(Sticks and stones break the bones_

 _Aimed with an angry art_

 _The sad thing is and was_

 _Your words broke my heart...)_

"You bastard..." And then he wants to laugh because he of all the people should not be saying that word, _bastard_. "I'm the one who's fit to be the Tenth!"

"B-But G-G-Gokudera-k-kun, i-is that r-really what y-you want? W-will th-that m-m-make you happy?" Tsuna says it like happness is the most important thing in the entire world and that even hitmen should strive for it.

 _(It's awfully pretty isn't it? To think so...)_

He also says it like the word is fragile and safe on his tongue, and if Gokudera said that yes, it would make him happy, Tsunayoshi would have handed over the Vongola at a moment's notice.

Reborn is torn between wanting to tear his hair out at the compassion of his dame student and tearing the mafia wold to pieces because that kindness is going to go to waste in such a dark world. Or perhaps it will save it.

Who knows?

 _(You are foolish, child._

 _So very, very, very foolish...)_

Gokudea has stiffened, and now his eyes are hidden by the shadows of his hair. His shoulders shake. His hands, scarred and hardened, clench. He throws his head back up, pulls some dynamite from who knows where, and then screams,

"DIE!"

First is ten.

Tsuna, with extremely surprising grace, manages to dodge, screaming at Smoking Bomb to _'please stop! please!'_

Reborn pretend that he doesn't want to jump down there and swoop in and save Tsuna.

He doesn't know why he feels that way, though.

 _(I think that kindness is the best kind of poison._

 _The very best in the whole wide and ugly, dirty world...)_

Second is twenty.

Tsuna finally makes a sound that wasn't shriek or a beg for Smoking Bomb to stop because he might hurt himself.

"Will...will you tell me why you're so sad?"

Smoking Bomb freezes, again because Reborn now knows that his stupid student has that effect on people.

Then he triples the amount of bombs he used.

And Tsuna just...changes.

* * *

 _'_ _ **It is not the first time he has had this dream'**_

* * *

 _(They say that dreams are just remixed versions of our memories...)_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _'_ _ **he hurls the bombs, but one lands too close and-'**_

 _ **'the bombs fly, and he sees his chance and TAKES it-'**_

 _ **'the bombs fly without a hitch but then the ground beneath him topples away-'**_

 _ **'he falls-'**_

 _ **'he burns-'**_

 _ **'he kills himself-'**_

 _ **'hediesdiesdiesdiesidies-'**_

'I AM SO TIRED OF BEING ALL ALONE'

And Tsuna knows.

And Tsuna has felt.

And Tsuna has seen.

And Tsuna was so very, very, very sorry on behalf of the idiots who couldn't see such and amazing person.

Then, Tsuna.

Tsuna.

Oh Tsuna.

Oh dear, dear Tsuna.

Dame, dumb, useless, hopeless, kind, sweet, bleeding soul, dandelion boy Tsuna rushes forwards, with no dying will bullet heading towards him.

Time slows.

Hayato prepares to breathe his last in a world that did not want him.

.

.

.

Tsuna lunges, slamming his tiny, frail form into Hayato's and tossing him out of harm's way.

.

.

.

The bombs blow up behind him, and Tsuna bites through his tongue to muffle his screams.

.

.

.

Reborn?

Reborn is..numb.

He is numb, because he has seen something extraordinary.

He was the only one to see the bright, pure, _beautiful,_ freedom flying banner of orange flames that instead of staying on his forehead, wraps around Tsuna's head like a wreath of flames.

A wreath for victors.

What has Tsuna won?

* * *

Currently, Tsuanyoshi is lying sprawled upon Hayato's chest, whimpering in pain, both from his mouth and his back, which are both covered in blisters and burns. Underneath him, Gokudera is lying in shock.

 _(Did you know? To save the one she loved, the little mermaid gave up her own life?_

 _Stupid, wasn't it._

 _We should always try to live for the ones we love.)_

"...Why?"

Gokudera's voice is so soft and weak that even Reborn has to strain to hear it.

"Why...would you risk your life...for someone like me?"

Tsunayoshi, and Tsunayoshi alone can hear the faint emotions behind the question.

' _Do you really care about my exsistence?'_

 _'Please, oh dear goodness, please say yes...'_

 _(You! Oh my gosh, you! You're the one...you're the one I ave been loking for, for so long...)_

"Because you matter. Because.." Tsuna, with some struggle, sits up so he is straddling Gokudera. His hands, still gloved, come up to cup Gokudera's face, and green locks with brown.

"Because I think that you are an extraordinary person. To go through all that you did and still be as strong as you are. To still have emotion. To still.." He swallows here, and looks away.

"To still live."

The way Tsuna says it causes alarm bells to ring through his ears. Reborn frowns as he watches from his hiding spot, gun lying next to him long since forgotten.

Tsuna's eyes bleed and birth from brown into a stunning gold and now Reborn _knows_ that it's not just a trick of the light.

"Hayato." Tsuna's voice is deeper, and the fact that his hair tie slipped away causes his long hair to fly about.

Hayato sees an angel.

"You matter."

Two words.

Nine letters.

Three syllables.

That's all it takes.

That's all.

That's all, and Tsuna.

Hayato starts to cry his heart out onto his saviour and future boss' shoulder. Tsuna pets his back, ignoring the painful stretching of his wounds as he says nothing,but continues to run long and gloved fingers through Gokudera's hair.

 _(Gee. You...you must've really been through something, huh...)_

When the shaking stops and the tears slow, Tsuna is gently,oh so very gently, pushed off of Gokudera's lap.

Immediately, Gokudera falls into a bow, eyes practically shining as he looks at Tsuna.

"Juudiame! I apologize for ever doubting your worthiness! Please, take this humble servant as your subordinate!"

The look on Tsuna's face is so very priceless. Reborn takes advantage of the situation to appear seemingly from nowhere, enjoying the surprise on Tsuna's face.

"Good job, Tsuna," He says, smirkng. "Smoking Bob became your subordinate due to your strength."

 _Is kindness a weakness or a strength? Even he didn't know anymore._

Tsuna flushes pink and panics, the ten year old trying to get Gokudera to stop bowing with a frantic expression on, his hair whipping wildy around him.

"Hiee? Oh, n-n-no, Gokudera-kun, not a subordinate!"

Tsuna's stutter is back along with Gokudera's heartbroken look. Upon seeing it, Tsuna quicky says,

"But I would love a friend!"

Gokudera eyes fill with happy, adoring, glistening tears and he smiles geniunely for th first time that Reborn has seen him.

The moment is soon broken however, when Tsuna pitches forwards, eyes rolling back. Unbeknowst to the other two, Tsuna was currently feeling an extreme drain on his flame core. He clung to last edges of conciousness in time to see a flash of gold amoung the trees. He smiles, secret and warm, as he falls into Gokudera's arms.

* * *

 _(To be loved..._

 _To be cared for..._

 _Everything was beautiful_

 _And nothing hurt.)_

 _._

 _._

 _._

Reborn watches as Smoking Bomb runs toward the nurses office with precious cargo in his arms.

To inspire so much loyalty so soon...

Tsuna has a strange way with people.

A truly understanding way.

Reborn might call it 'The Tsuna Effect.'

 _(The child must know that he is a miracle,_

 _that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been,_

 _and until the end of the world there will not be,_

 _another child like him.)_

* * *

A brush, white haired and fine tipped, is dipped into a small saucer of red.

Then, it just barely touches the suface of a soft orange.

The tip now loaded with ink, a pale and delicate hand comes forwards, and in a bold and defining graceful strength, and thin brush stroke is smoothed down the rice paper.

Who knew Tsunayoshi could paint?

Giotto's left ear flicks in Reborn's direction as he walks into Tsuna's bedroom, before it turns back to his master. Giotto reaches out a fluffy and chubby paw, trying to mimic Tsuna's graceful movements. Tsuna merely chuckles at the cat's antics, moving his brush away and dangling a different brush in front of Giotto's face, yanking it away sharply when Giotto tried to eat it.

Honestly, and Giotto wondered why he was overweight.

The storm outside rumbled and cracked, licking up the sides of the sky with lightning and laughing along with Tsuna in bursts of uproarious thunder.

It was beautiful, to the ones who knew how to watch it.

Tsunayoshi gives Reborn a soft and shy smile as he walks into the room, inky paint smudged on the tip of his nose. Reborn gestures to the rice paper in front of him, which had bursts of blood red and angry orange watercolor to create a replica of the storm outside.

"I didn't know that you painted, Dame-Tsuna." Statement. Not question. Reborn didn't do questions.

Tsuna shrugs as he dips the brush into some water, then dips into a little white.

He paints tiny, upward facing flowers on the dark ground.

They look like hopelessness.

And somehow, despite the color on the brush, the flowers are blue.

Giotto gave Reborn a severe look, the cat clearly not pleased that Reborn was not groveling in the presence of his master, thanking him for letting him breathe his air. Reborn didn't do petty , but he sure as hell wasn't having his beloved position on Tsuna's lap go without a fight, dammit!

He gave the cat a blank stare.

Gitto gave soft hiss.

Giotto gets booped on the nose by Tsuna's finger.

Immediately, the cat takes on a lost and confused expression. Tsuna snorts. Giotto is...a special cat...

The doorbell rang and Tsuna rushes to get it, gently placing the brush back into its place.

Upon opening the door, Tsunayoshi got sight of Gokudera, and his face brightened.

"Gokudera-kun!"

Gokudera executes a flawless ninety degree bow.

"Good afternoon, Juudiame!"

Immediately, Tsuna was trying to get him to stand up and call him by his own name because ' _they were friends not boss and subordinate Gokudera-kun!'_

It was no wonder that time flew.

Hours later with homework done and bellies full of Tsuna's delicious cooking and Giotto snoozing on Tsuna's face, Tsuna dreams again.

 _(How could something so bad, happen on such a good day...)_

* * *

Tsunayoshi is standing above a building with his heels just on the edge and his heart sagging down to his stomach and his weight pitching forwards in the way a water drop does when it's about to fall, indecisive yet unable to go back.

 _'No one wants me'_

 _'Not me'_

 _'Want do the people see?'_

 _'I am so tired of living'_

 _'I am so tired of breathing'_

 _'I...can't...'_

 _'I...can't be useless'_

 _'Why can't people see!'_

 _'How I feel!'_

 _'What I need!'_

 _'HELP ME'_

 _'HELP ME'_

 _'HELP ME PLEASE HELP ME'_

 _'i...i'm...so...so...so..tired'_

And he jumps.

again

again

again

again

Tsuna is out of the person's body now and watching from behind as a teen with hair like pitch jumps off the roof of the school.

He can't see the teen's face, but he can feel the emotions.

sadness

remorse

guilt

shame

anger

happiness

regret

fear

helplessness

terror

He is falling

He is falling

He is flying

He is dyingdyingdying-

Tsuna wakes up screaming and instantly, Gokudera is at his side rubbing his back and trying to soothe him. Tsuna doesn't even notice the fact that sometime during the night, Gokudera moved his futon to be in his room. He doesn't notice the wet tongue of Leon flicking his cheek. He doesn't notice that Giotto has vanished, or that Reborn is looking at him from where he is standing on his thigh, expression one of open concern.

All Tsuna can see is the falling of that poor, poor, selfish boy as he jumps.

again

and

again

and again.

* * *

Outside, there is a tall, slender, surprisingly toned Italian man with deep, sunset orange eyes and untamable gold hair. He stands sadly as his - **owner, partner, descendant, friend-** sits and shivers inside.

In his palms, he holds sadness.

Or rather, a cause of sadness.

The pacifier is soft and warm to his touch, and he-Giotto-smiles down at it with a fondness.

"Hello, Sepira."

The pacifier does not do anything. It does not glow, and flicker, or talk, or anything.

The soul inside is too far gone, too lost, too used.

Giotto's smile fades along with some of the pacifier's glow. It was his own flames that kept the gem from shining from being near the sun. But he won't last like this forever.

Gently, he presses his lips to the stone, and there is a bright light originating from the kiss, before it settles.

The pacifier glows brighter now. Just a little, but brighter.

Giotto pants, trying to regain breath.

 _(Stupidly kind, they are, stupidly kind.)_

"Giotto?"

A soft and helpless call from inside has him rushing back to his human, the only evidence he was ever outside being the imprint of a boot, the slight squishing of the grass, and the remaining warm feeling that one gets when one does good.

Giotto was already inside, the last flick of a fluffy tail dissappearing behind the corner.

* * *

 **A/N: So...there. Yup, Gokudera's chappie, all done. I hope you guys like it, and that the story still seems okay.**

 **Also, by popular demand...Real Giotto as a fat, tuna loving, sassy cat! I hope you guys like him.**

 **Anyways, thank you guys so much for the wonderful reviews and happy birthday wishes and quotes and favorites and follows. Seriously, you guys made my day.**

 **I do intend to use all the quotes and ideas you guys gave me, but I couldn't find a right spot to use them in this chapter...I'm sorry.**

 **But really you guys, THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH for both the support and the tips and the love you guys have for this. I can not thank you enough. But now, I have a few questions for you guys, because this story is largely based off of what you guys think, and because I love hearing your opinions.**

 **1\. Are my characters to flat or ooc? If so, can you tell me how to fix it?**

 **2\. Does the pace seem too rushed to you? Should I slow down?**

 **3\. I kow that I have a bad tendency to switch POV's. Can you follow, or is it too confusing? If it is, do you want me to pick a POV a stick with it for the whole story, or should it be marked when I switch POV's?**

 **4\. The romance will be very, very mild. Do you mind me hinting at All27, or do you want just one?**

 **Anyways, thank you all for everything,**

 **Please know that your ideas and quotes will be used,**

 **And as always,**

 **Ciao~**

 **Pink.**

 **P.S. The quotes here are from Disney's The Little Mermaid, Pablo Casals, Kurt Vonnegurt's Slaughterhouse-Five, or my own.**

 **Real Ciao~**

 **Pink.**


	6. Drip, Sad Boy, Drip

Chapter Six

Drip, Sad Boy, Drip

 _(A little boy made of wood_

 _Wished on blue stars and drops of rain._

 _'I think I was a human once_

 _Can you make me that again?')_

Namimori Middle School is not a place that Tsuna likes.

It is filled with hateful people and false emotions and broken promises and sex with people who weren't their lovers against lockers and nasty sounds and awful smells and terrible teachers.

Tsuna has it bad because every time someone tells a lie and he hears it, his empathy goes haywire. And Tsuna has it worse because 'make the pretty boy scream' is a fun game. And once Tsuna started wearing gloves and long sleeved shirts, his classmates would rip them away and shove him, and as the scene of a boy getting stabbed by his peers plays over and over again in his mind, Tsuna bites his tongue.

He does not want to scream.

He will not satisfy these people.

And that is why Namimori Middle School is not a place Tsuna likes. At all.

And that is also why Tsuna dislikes Yamamoto Takeshi.

Because the teen is fake.

And because he feels the way Yamamoto feels whenever he is forced to clean the baseball bats after his bullies steal his gloves.

'OH MY GOSH I AM SO ALONE'

'I AM SO ALONE'

'DON'T FORGET TO SMILE'

'I AM SO ALONE'

'HELP'

.

.

.

.

'am i useless, now?...'

'...help me...i miss you...mother...'

And as Tsuna cleans, he cries.

He cries over the poor, troubled, tired teen that he never sees because they are in different grades. He cries over the loss of another's mother. He cries for this sad boy, with a smile like a chipped shard of stained glass.

He cries because that boy has long since forgotten how to feel a thing.

 _('I have long since learned the beauty of dancing in the rain')_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _(I have also learned the pain of angry raindrops beating at the skin.)_

* * *

Tsunayoshi has a burning fever that has his usually pale face flushed and sheet white all at the same time.

His mind swims in and out as he struggles to focus on his math lesson for a reason he can't remember because he knows that even if he was looking at the board, he wouldn't get it anyways.

He feels so _cold._

 _(He is burning up.)_

And his head just _hurts._

 _(The laughter of his classmates slams his head like the banging of a great gong.)_

All Tsuna wants right now is to be in bed at home, and in truth, he should be. He had never really been this sick before.

The pacifier is taking its own toll on him.

And any power comes at a price.

He almost wishes that he let Hayato stay with him, or that he had at least stayed at home for an extra hour. Or that he wasn't assualted by feverish nightmares when he tried to get back to sleep.

The bell rings for lunch, shoving its sound through the hazy drip drop grey fuzz of his mind as he shakily gets to his feet. As he staggers out the door, he doesn't even glance at the boy who runs past him in the hallways. At least he doesn't until the boy starts screaming.

"Yamamoto is about to jump off of the roof!"

Tsuna's eyes widen, and the haziness in them clears up a bit.

Oh.

That was why he dreamt last night.

The Selfish Boy.

He's really jumping.

 _('The rain...you can't really blame it for looking like tears,_

 _After all,_

 _It may just not know how to fall up.)_

* * *

And Tsuna runs to the rooftop.

With his throat sore and his head pounding and his lungs heaving in great coughs,

Tsunayoshi runs to the rooftop.

He is barely aware of Hayato behind him. And it is with a dreamlike, drunken dullness that he notices Reborn standing on his shoulder.

Because his fevered brain is set on one thing.

' _don't let another one die,'_

Because if Tsuna was just a little less dame, Yamamoto's mother might still be here to hug her son. If Tsuna was just a little less selfish, he would be dead and Yamamoto's mother would still be alive. And if he was truly kind, well, he would stop himself from wanting others around him.

It wasn't like he had a future to him, anyways.

But...

He really was so lonely.

 _(The kind and the greedy_

 _One must wonder if they are the same...)_

Stupid Tsuna, he berates himself, stupid no good dame Tsuna.

Why can't you do anything right?

Hayato has one eye on the path before him, the other staying fixed on his boss. The worry he was trying to hide was bleeding its way into his eyes as he ran. After all, as much as Hayato wished that it weren't so, Tenth...Tenth is delicate.

He felt it when he was carrying the boy to the nurses office.

He saw it when the frail chest of Tenth's rose so slightly he had to rest his hand on his torso as to make sure he was really breathing.

He heard it in the shaking coughs his boss had been suffering from since last night.

Tenth, he was fragile.

Not in the mind of course, heavens, no.

The determination in those eyes could tear down the skies if it wanted.

But the body?

 _(He is like a teacup._

 _Chipped China._

 _When to use him?...)_

His boss, is fragile.

Thin.

Like a shard of a china cup hidden in ruins.

And as much as Hayato just wants to reach out and pick up and swing his Tenth off into a comfy bed someplace, tell him to lay down a let his right hand man take care of it, he can't. Tenth...Tsuna needs to do this.

So Hayato watches his too determined, too fragile boss run, chest heaving.

 _(Have you ever known anyone with a soul too big for their body?)_

And he cusses out the bastard up on the rooftop in his mind because even though whoever was up there probably would never know just what Tenth was doing for him.

But he would.

And even now, the look on Tenth's face last night...

It haunts him.

* * *

 _He, at some point dragged his futon into the room of his new boss._

 _Dozing off in the warm and yet somehow so empty house, he hears it._

 _A scream._

 _A scream from his boss._

 _He had never been more awake in his life._

 _As he rushes over to the bed,_

 _He takes his boss into his arms, trying to ignore that flinch._

 _He had noticed it before though._

 _It was as if Tenth was terrified of touch._

 _It slips away however,_

 _And now, Tenth is clutching his shirt with still gloved palms._

 _'Hayato'_

 _shaken._

 _So very shaken._

 _Like he had just seen the doors to hell_

 _'Hayato...'_

 _Like he was reassuring himself that Hayato was indeed here._

 _His boss is burning up beneath his long shirt and Hayato has to wonder,_

 _'Why wear that at night?'_

 _Tenth curls up, and Reborn jumps down to land on Tenth's thigh._

 _'Dame-Tsuna, what's wrong?'_

 _Even he can see the worry on the hitman's face._

 _Then Tenth speaks again, and Hayato's heart freezes_

 _'I...don't want to fall...'_

 _That look on Tenth's face..._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _It doesn't leave,_

 _Even as he goes back to sleep,_

 _Hayato still at his side._

* * *

Hayato grits his teeth around an unlit cigarette as the doors to the roof loom closer.

Tenth's face is pale and sweaty, and a determined expression takes over his features.

And it is with soft steps that they walk into the hurricane.

* * *

Giotto was running to the school on soft paws, a flash of gold shooting down the street.

In his mouth, he holds a small red bullet.

 _'Oh please let me be not too late'_

This kind of bullet might kill Tsuna.

 _'Oh please...PLEASE!'_

A gunsot fires in the distance and he runs even faster.

 _'Please no...'_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _'Not my Tsunayoshi, please!'_

 _(When you walk away..._

 _You don't hear me say..._

 _Please..._

 _Baby, don't go..._

 _._

 _._

 _I don't want to be alone...)_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _(Didn't I say? This is a tale of the kind, the lonely, the bitter, and the scared.)_

* * *

Yamamoto Takeshi is standing on the rooftop on the very edge with his heels just on the edge and his toes pointing out to face freedom. Or death.

Same thing, really.

He adjust himself, shifting his - **broken, useless, pointless,** \- arm slightly, then winces at the pain.

Yamamoto Takeshi is going to die.

And he is...happy?

 _('Remember? Remember who I used to be?')_

Peering down at the down below him, he smiles sadly when he sees the throng of students below.

Are they afraid to come up?

Do they think he has a strange disease that he will spread to them if they dare come up on the rooftop?

He is smiling still, if simply because smiling has now become a subconsious habit.

He was pathetic.

 _(Who am I? Who am I? My reality,_

 _It's slipping away...)_

The doors bang open, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. Turning around, not swinging around because he can't be bothered to care anymore, he sees a boy whom he only saw in passing on the street.

Dame-Tsuna.

And now he feels like letting out barks of laughter because this school sent its whipping boy up to talk to him.

Was he really so _useless?_

 _(I'm lost_

 _So very, very lost._

 _Will I..._

 _Be able to see the sky again?)_

* * *

How does one write a suicide note?

Do you scribble down words of nothing, and keep it as superfical as the mask one wears?

Or do tell them why, and apologize for not being there with them to comfort them?

In Yamamoto's locker, there are several crumpled up pieces of paper, each trying to begin.

 _Dear Dad,_

 _I'm sorry-_

no.

 _Dear Dad,_

 _I love you-_

no.

 _Dad, I'm writing because-_

no.

In Takeshi's pocket, there is a complete note, but it is not to his dad, and it is not to a girlfriend, and it is not to a buddy.

It is to his mom.

His dead mom.

His mom who he will soon be seeing.

His eyes slide shut as he listens to the whistling of the wind from where he stands up on the ledge. It is the most peace he has felt in a very long time. The piece of paper in his pocket is scribbled with his besst handwriting, or rather the best handwriting that he could manage with a broken right hand.

* * *

 _Dear Mom,_

 _I miss you_

 _I really, really, really miss you._

 _Remember that book that you read to me all the time as a kid?_

 _I do._

 _So then,_

 _Can you guess how much I love you?..._

* * *

Tsuna looks pale. Takeshi looks like death on wings. Hayato is trying to restrain himself from reaching out to support his boss, and now Reborn is hidden, Leon gun at the ready.

The potential Rain guardian is just two centimeters from dying.

That doesn't really concern him.

What does concern him is the fact that his stupid student is probably going to run up to the teen and jump right after him in a useless attempt to save him. Tsuna was kind like that.

Oh, Yamamoto wass speaking now.

"You won't be able to stop me, Tsuna." At this his head tilts back up towards the skyline, and his eyes take on a scary sort of longing. "I have nothing left to live for, after all."

Such...finality.

Such loss of hope and sadness and-

"Hey Tsuna, have you ever wondered where we go when we die?" And Tsuna...he nods.

He nods.

Why in the hell, at ten years old, would Tsuna need to think about where he went when he died?

Why?

Why...did he care?

At this point, Reborn doesn't know if that last question is for hm or for his student. _Tsuna,_ his mind whispers, _his name is Tsuna._

He ignores it, and adjusts his grip on his gun.

He wasn't going to try to find another sky again.

It just ended up in ash.

(In his later years, as he watches Tsuna fight with pure and sky bound flames, he laughs so bitterly he might as well have been crying.

 _Up in ash..._ )

"I-I have," Tsuna murmurs, and his voice is like the song of a slightly rusted wind chime against the wind, so hoarse and soft. "B-But, then I tell myself that I shouldn't, no...that I can't."

His eyes...

Takeshi looks back at the change in tone.

Tsuna, who had previously been hunched over in the throes of a severe cold, was standing back straight and head held high, hair whipped in a stronger wind that seemed to be drawn towards this slip of a boy.

And his eyes were burning.

And Takeshi...Takeshi just clutched at the note in his pocket. trying to block out what he knew would come next because deep down, he knew that this person was not going to let him jump without the world ending first.

* * *

 _I love you so much you wouldn't believe_

 _I love you as far as I can pitch a fastball_

 _I love you as high as I can hit a home run_

 _And..._

 _Once, someone told me, if I swing high enough, I could hit the moon._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Do you remember that?_

* * *

Tsuna steps forwards and Takeshi watches.

Then-

"But surely, tou can at least understand where I'm coming from, right?" Takeshi says, allowing the words to spill past slightly chapped lips.

Tsuna stares at him, but for a moment, to all watchers present, his eyes go almost misty, clouded over with a milky gold as they focus on something that seems to be located just over Takeshi's shoulder.

Then he focuses again, and he smiles.

Tsuna smiles in the way a tossed aside, used, broken angel might smile.

He smiles in the way a tired, world weary, old man might smile.

His face...doesn't look right, smiling like that.

"I...am sorry, Yamamoto-kun, but...I can honestly say that I don't understand." And Yamamoto sneers now, and it is the first genuine expression that he has for what feels like the first time. His eyes darken, and as a bit of killing intent touches the air, Reborn gets ready to shoot. It's not a lot but it's directed at Tsuna so screw it all if Yamamoto is rain guardian material-

"Oh? So you're better than me now huh? I guess even Dame-Tsuna has to trample on someone, huh?"

That has Tsuna shaking his head so frantically that Reborn thought his students head might fly off.

"No! No, not at all!" His eyes dim behind a soft curtain of bangs, and he raises one hand to brush over the other gloved one. "It's just, I've never had much to live for, you know? I-I mean, people, they're always teling me that I'm useless, and that I'm no good, and that I shouldn't try," he murmurs. "And, I-I know that."

He so sure. So sure. And honestly, the fact that his usually meek and soft and submissive student is so sure of the one thing that it causes an old and yet very familiar feeling to settle in Reborn's stomach.

 _How dare they hurt my Sky._

And Reborn doesn't try to avoid those words now. He doesn't fully trust Tsuna, but...he was, in a way, Reborn's.

He was his student.

His.

So, how dare they? How dare they?

Tsuna isn't finished yet, though.

"But, whenever I see you, I think that maybe I can be just a little bit better! I mean, you- your emotions-your smile- I mean," Tsuna wrings his hands together, and tries again, with Yamamoto hanging on to every word, eyes wide. "You...your face never matches your emotions, and deep down inside your trying to avoid crying because you want to be strong and you just want your happiness back-"

Happiness back?

Was that...was that what he wanted?

But then why...then why was he up here?

* * *

 _Sometimes, I like to think that when I hit a ball as far and as high as I can,_

 _You're up there_

 _Just behind the moon_

 _Waiting to toss it back_

 _Just like you did_

 _When you were still alive_

 _And we would go to play at the park_

* * *

"And Yamamoto-kun...I...I am so sorry."

Tsuna's soft honey orbs cloud over with a deep, heartfelt regret and he looks at Takeshi as if he was holding up his heart for judgement.

"I'm so sorry that never tried to help you. I'm sorry that I saw all of this and still did nothing. I'm sorry that I failed to help your mother...I...really am no good...I'm sorry,"

Throughout all of this, Hayato has been watching his boss with the eyes of a hawk, ready to jump in should he need to. Then a spot of gold makes itself known in his vision and he turns and sees the cat Tenth dotes on at the door.

There is a dying will bullet in his mouth.

Why-

Tsuna starts to speak again.

"I...please...come back from there, Yamamoto-kun, please."

And Silence reigns.

Then-

"Your mother, I don't think she would want you to die, not here, not like this."

Red and raw rage takes over Takeshi's vision because Tsuna is just strolling through his soul with his words and tearinng open every careful sealed box and tossing the emotions over himself.

"Oh? So now you want to disrespect my mother, hm? Well tell me, how do you know? How do you know what my mother would want? How do you know, _Dame-_ Tsuna?Well? Go ahead, try it!"

Tsuna just gets that same milky gold sheen to his gaze, and that far awayness to his gaze. Then his eyes take on a rueful tint.

"Don't mothers always wish the best for their sons?"

* * *

 _I'm sorry Mom_

 _I shouldn't have thrown that ball that far_

 _Maybe then,_

 _You wouldn't have had to chase after it_

 _Into the street_

 _I'm sorry._

* * *

Takeshi stills.

 _'I know that you'll do great, Takeshi! So try your best!'_

 _'I love you so much, Takeshi, so, so, so, much!'_

 _'I want my boy to grow up strong! You can do that for me, right Takeshi?'_

 _'Takeshi...I...want...you to be...happy...so...re...member...smile, okay?'_

 **Mothers, they always wish the best for their sons.**

He blinks, but a tear falls anyway.

Then another.

And another.

And soon, for the first time since after the funeral, he cries.

Genuine tears and no smile to speak of.

And it is like a cleanse to his soul.

 _(Smiles are like the rainbows that can only come after tears and rain.)_

Shakily, because whatever strength that Tsuna was using is fading fast, Tsuna steps forwards and gently tugs on Yamamoto's sleeve.

"Yamamoto-kun...please come-"

The fence breaks.

It is in a strange flash of speed that Tsuna yanks Yamamoto back onto the saftey of the roof as he begins to plummet to his doom.

And Reborn, feeling the sink of a stone in his stomach, readies his gun.

And Giotto run forwards.

To all looking, he was fast, but to him?

It was like he was running at the speed of a hibernating animal blood as it sleeps beneath the ice.

It was like he was runnig though a dream, no, a nightmare. It was like he was running in the worst nightmare anyone alive could think of because _his legs just won't move fast enough to stop that hitman, dammit-!_

The gun fires and he bullet slams forwards and Giotto feels his whole soul slip away as his greatest treasure tumbles down with that _thing_ heading for him.

He collapses, looking away.

oh goodness why.

that red bullet, why.

why did the color red keep stealing futures!

why...

And Giotto lets out a sound from the back of hs throat that sounds so human the boy with the broken arm tears his eyes away from Tsuna to give him a shocked look.

The bullet hits, spot on.

And instead of dying then coming back, Tsuna just goes limp.

And his eyes roll back.

And it is a corpse that plummets to the earth.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Then a brightness.

Giotto spins his head to face Tsuna so fast that he almost got whiplash.

And his heart runs back up into his chest as Tsuna, with the dying grace and beauty of a falling, dying, exploding star, slows and stops in mid-air and raises up, flying.

His eyes are completely orange gold, and flame lcks and the corners of them.

Around his head, there is a great wreath of deep pure and almost blinding Sky Flames.

His shirt and pants have torn away, leaving him in black boxers.

" _ **Live."**_

A pacifier, bright orange and tied in chains, swings free from around Tsuna's neck a Reborn's heart stops in his chest.

" _ **Live."**_

His voice is deeper now, and Hayato just can't breathe as he stares at the supernova before him.

 **"I will...I wish to grow strong, and to live."**

Takeshi can't help but sigh in relief as Tsuna touches down back on the rooftop, and the fire dies away and Tsuna's eyes blinks back into an adorable brown.

Tsuna smiles at him, face flushed and eyes already closing as he staggers to Takeshi's side. He drops to his knees.

"Takeshi...will you be okay?"

That's when Takeshi realizes that Tsuna is way too kind. And as Gokudera runs forwards crying 'Tenth!' and Tsuna pitches forwards and he catches him-

Takeshi realizes that Tsuna won't ever stop being kind. And that will be alright. because no matter what happens, Takeshi will be here to protect Tsuna and carry him when he is too kind.

It's the least he can do.

And his mother...well, she taught him to always repay his debts.

"I'm fine, Tsuna." And as Tsuna smiles and drops of into a feverish sleep, he adds one more thing. He presses his lips to a burning forehead and smiles, for real this time, and murmurs against flesh, ignoring Gokudera's enraged shouts and the cat's rather close claws.

"You, Tsuna, you...You are definitely not no good."

 _(Ah! The rain has stopped, you see, I told you it would!_

 _And now that you don't have to be perfect._

 _You can just be good!)_

* * *

Reborn...Reborn is numb.

And as he watches his student guardains and his dumb cat celebrate, he thinks.

 _I've found my Sky._

And then, as fear crawls down his veins and into his stomach, he pales.

 _please don't let me fail again._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _...please..._

* * *

 **A/N: (How to write a Yamamoto meets Tsuna chapter. Write like you're half dead, and make no mention of Yamamoto's dad whatsoever. Nailed it.)And this chapter is finally done. Finally. Now we just have one or two more chapters until the Mukuro Arc. And guess what?**

 **Next chapter won't have that much angst!**

 **Or tragic happenings!**

 **Or any other sad stuff!**

 **And it will have Hibari!**

 **Yay!**

 **Anyways, I am just so happy you guys like this story, I read every review, and treasure every favorite and follow to my heart. Really, you all are the absolute best. In fact, right now, I want you to look in any reflective surface, pat yourself on the back, and smile and say**

 **"Damn, I am really, really amazing,"**

 **Because you are. But now, I have some questions.**

 **1\. Quotes, stay or nay? I've been wondering if the quotes are too distracting from the real story, or just plain useless. Let me know?**

 **2\. Are you okay with the lack of dialogue? I've read through my chapters, and I've noticed that as an overall story, this lacks a lot of dialogue. Are the charaters progressing fine without it? Should I add more?**

 **3\. Which Arcobaleno should I introduce first? I was thinking either Fon or Skull, but I really want your opinions.**

 **But that's enough out of me for now,**

 **Lots of tuna plushies and fat giottos**

 **Ciao~**

 **Pink.**

 **P.S The quotes here are snippets of Kingdom Hearts song covers done by Lizz, John Steinback's East of Eden, or my own. As usual, if you've got a quote, send it, I have three really nice ones so far, which I plan on using in the Varia arc.**

 **Also, I have written a oneshot called Asphodels. If your looking for more feels, feel free to check it out!**

 **Real Ciao~**

 **Pink.**


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